


Wing Man

by epiclifeinruins



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But it is silly, Gen, Have some Halloween Kylux, These boys tho, You just gotta love them, and kinda cute, it's not really scary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 06:31:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8390872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epiclifeinruins/pseuds/epiclifeinruins
Summary: Were Hux and Ben both realize that fear is subjective.Very subjective indeed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my own little contribution to the lovely Halloween themed super-fest that is currently sweeping through the Kylux fandom.  
> This fic is not so much about scary things, as about what it's like to actually BE scared. And how difficult it can be for  
> people around you to fully understand your fears.  
> Anyway, I hope ya'll enjoy this most recent addition to my collection of ridiculous crack.  
> Happy Halloween, my darlings! <3 <3 <3 
> 
> A HUGE EPIC THANK YOU SO VERY VERY MUCH to my beautiful and so very, very talented girlfriend house-of-villainy @ tumblr for all the love, support and editing during the writing of this story!  
> You kick all the butts, princess! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

”You were scared too, Hux,” Ben insisted as he struggled to push the eject button on the remote control with his huge fingers. “Admit it!”

Hux sighed and turned around after folding the blanket they had used to keep warm and grabbed the remote control from Ben’s hand. “There wasn’t a single thing in that film that gave me any reason to be scared,” he said.

He put the DVD back in its case and walked over to the bookshelf where the rest of their collection of films were kept. Actually, it was Ben’s collection, one he had basically forced upon Hux when he had moved into Hux’s house two years ago. Hux had nearly lost his mind when he realized just how many films Ben actually owned. Ben had kept them all in boxes, which was both messy and impractical. Hux had made it perfectly clear that if Ben wished to keep his extensive collection, it would have to be stored properly. And alphabetically. Ben had laughed at the idea but of course he had no choice but to agree. Hux had spent an entire afternoon organizing (and wiping all the dust off) Ben’s films. The result was great, Ben could not argue with that, and now his collection was a compulsory part of the “welcome to our house”-tour for any and every visitor they ever entertained.

Ben got up from the couch and walked over to Hux. “Oh, c’mon, you jumped at least a foot when that lady got trapped in the basement,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the TV as if the scene was still being played out on the screen.

Hux turned around and faced his boyfriend. “That was merely a reaction to when the door suddenly slammed shut,” he said, now clearing away their empty wine glasses and the bowl of popcorn from the coffee table. “Cheap jump scares obviously don’t have the same effect on me as they have on you.”

“Yeah, right,” Ben grunted, grumpily folding his arms across his chest. “Congratulations on being so utterly fearless, then.”

“Oh, stop sulking, you overgrown child,” Hux groaned, and rolled his eyes as he walked out into the kitchen and placed the glasses and the bowl in the dishwasher. “Excuse me for not being easily rattled. Would it be better if I screamed like a four-year-old child without bladder control, like someone we know?"

“Do you enjoy being a prick?” Ben asked with an exasperated look on his face, leaning against the doorpost.

“I take pleasure in the smaller things in life, I guess.” Hux shrugged as he pressed the start button on the dishwasher, the low humming sound of the machine blending with the cadence of splashing of water coming from inside it.

The most monumental of pouts was now covering Ben’s face as he stood up straight in the doorway. “I’m going to bed now,” he said, his voice dripping with indignation. “Alone,” he added, almost daringly.

Hux raised his eyebrows subtly, the corner of his mouth tilting up ever so slightly. “Oh, that’s fine,” he waved his hand lazily at Ben. “I was going to sleep in the study anyway. I have some paperwork that I have to finish.”

Ben’s upper lip twitched several times and for a second Hux thought that he had gone too far and that Ben was going to throw something at him. But instead, Ben huffed and gave Hux a pompous look. “Well, then you better make yourself really comfortable in there because you’re not going to see the inside of _my_  bedroom for a long time.”

Before Hux had any chance to answer, Ben turned on his heel and left the kitchen. Hux rolled his eyes again and shook his head at the dramatic exit. He was used to Ben’s mood swings and it hadn’t taken him long to figure out which of them were the sincere and which of them were just caused by Ben’s overdramatic flair. This one fell in the second category since Ben had not begun to throw things in his general direction. The throwing of items was definitely a bad sign. Hux had learnt that pretty early into the relationship. But now Hux knew that it was only a matter of time before Ben would come sneaking back into the kitchen with some poorly thought up excuse that would allow Hux to sleep in “his” bedroom despite the fact that he was such an unimaginable dick.

Hux therefore took his time wiping away the popcorn seeds from the counter before he turned around to leave the kitchen. He had barely reached the doorway before Ben almost crashed into him when he came rushing through it. “That didn’t take long,” Hux said with a smirk that quickly dissolved into a frown. “What’s the matter?” he asked, reading Ben’s desperation and his plead for an understanding he was afraid he would not get.

“There’s something upstairs!” Ben hissed, grabbing Hux’s upper arm and squeezing it as hard as he could. “I heard a noise!”

“Ow! Let go of my arm, dammit!” Hux grimaced as he tried to pry Ben’s fingers from his arm. “What kind of noise?”

“I dunno!” Ben sputtered, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Like a thud or something.”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

“What do you mean ‘specific’? I heard a noise, ok?” A trace of slight panic slipped into Ben’s voice.

“The word ‘noise’ covers a very broad spectrum of occurrences, Ben,” Hux asserted. “Was it the pipes? The house settling? Your overactive imagination?” he arched an eyebrow, almost daring to go on while he rubbed the part of his arm where Ben’s hand had been just a few seconds ago.

“Could you just stop being an asshole for two seconds and listen to me!” Ben almost yelped. “There…is something…upstairs,” he almost panted, forcing the words out in a sort of trembling staccato.

Hux let out a deep sigh. It was the same thing every time; Ben insisted on watching something scary, brushing off Hux’s protests with excuses such as “I was only sitting so close to you because I was cold, Hux!” or “Ha! I’ve watched so many scary movies by now that I’m basically immune to them!”. None of that was true, of course. Hux recalled one time when Ben had woken him up in the middle of the night demanding that he should come with him to the bathroom. Not because he was scared, (don’t be ridiculous, Hux), but because he swore that he had heard Hux mumble in his sleep about how much he needed to pee. Hux had nearly punched Ben in the face that time.

Hux remembered this incident very vividly and was more than beyond the end of his tether. He gave Ben a stern look. “Then I’ll just have to go up there and see what it is,” he said, taking a few determined steps towards the staircase.

Ben pounced like a tiger and grabbed Hux by both arms, pulling so hard that Hux almost fell over. “Are you crazy?! You can’t go up there!” Ben protested, his voice cracking with fear. “Anything could’ve made that sound! I’m not moving an inch closer to that staircase!”

Hux yanked his arms free and stared furiously at Ben. “Then you can stay here while I go have a look myself.”

Ben’s eyes widened and he shook his head violently at the mere prospect of being left alone. “What if something happens!?”

“Like what?”

“I might get kidnapped or something!”

“Ben, you’re a 6’2” overemotional mass of walking muscle. No one in their right mind would even contemplate kidnapping you.”

A trace of badly hidden pride flickered in Ben’s hazel eyes for a fraction of a second. “Yeah, okay, I guess so….” he said, the false modesty so blatantly obvious that it made Hux groan. “But I’m still not gonna stay here on my own!” he added, stomping his foot in what Hux thought to be a rather theatrical fashion.

“Then you’re just going to have to come with me, because I’m going upstairs,” Hux said as he walked past him to begin climbing the stairs.

“Wait!” Ben croaked and leapt into the living room in two large strides. Hux felt one of his eyelids twitch violently when Ben returned with one of the pokers from the fireplace in his hand. “For protection,” he muttered when he saw the look on Hux’s face.

“Oh, for the love of….” Hux moaned, covering his face with his hand.

“What?! Better safe than sorry!” Ben exclaimed. “I’m not going up there unarmed,” he continued, giving Hux a resolute look.

“You are a complete idiot.” Hux muttered, his exasperation almost taking physical form as he glared at Ben. “Go on then!” he gestured towards the stairs. “You’re the one with the weapon. Up you go!”

Ben’s jaw dropped. He had not expected to be the one leading this expedition. “Um…well…isn’t it better if you…?” he stammered, eyes darting between Hux and the staircase.

“Frazzled? _Obi-Wan_ ,” Hux asked mockingly, hands on his hips.

At the mention of his full name, Ben’s face darkened instantly. “Let’s go,” he growled as he pushed past Hux, getting in front of him at the foot of the stairs.

With Hux smirking behind him, he began to slowly climb the stairs with the poker raised in front of him like a sword. They had only reached the halfway point up the stairs when three loud thuds broke the uneasy silence in the house. Ben let out a low shriek in alarm. “Did you hear that?!” he gasped, turning around and staring wildly at Hux.

"I’m not deaf, you know.”

“There were three thuds! _Three_!” Ben whined, now borderline hysterical. “You know what that means?!”

“I have a distinct feeling that you are going to share this information whether I like it or not.” Hux moaned.

Ben moved closer to Hux, their faces now only inches apart. “Three knocks are a sign of demonic possession!” Ben whispered conspiratorially. “That’s what they said in the film, remember!” His eyes were now resembling two dinner plates. “What if we’re possessed!” he whimpered.

“We’re not possessed, you overgrown infant!” Hux barked. “Not demonically, at least.” he added, giving Ben a tired look. “Now, can we please get this over with before I die of old age?”.

“Shhh!” Ben hushed, gesturing violently with one of his hands in front of his face. “Lower your voice!”

Ben had barely finished his sentence when a loud crash was heard coming from one of the rooms.

“It’s the demon! It’s coming for us!” Ben yelped, his voice reaching such a high pitch that for a moment Hux thought that his boyfriend might have missed his true calling as a castrato singer.

But the frantic sobbing that followed did not, on the other hand, impress Hux. “Will you get a hold of yourself?!” he snapped and pushed past Ben, resolutely marching up the rest of the stairs and stopping outside the bedroom door. “It sounds like it’s coming from in here.”

“Hux!” Ben hissed. “Don’t!”

But it was too late. Hux had already placed his hand on the doorknob. Very carefully, Hux turned it and then pushed the door open. The creaking sound coming from the hinges sent an involuntary shudder down his spine. An eerie, flickering light filled the room as a lamp had been knocked over from one of the bedside tables and was now lying on the floor, fighting to stay lit. They stared sheepishly at it for a few seconds, and it crossed Ben’s mind that poltergeist activity was also a sign of demonic possession. He was just about to say this out loud when a blood curdling scream of sheer terror pierced the stillness. It was Hux, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Without hesitation, Ben hurled himself into the room, trying to get in front of Hux, who was in the process of half climbing, half jumping onto the bed, still screaming like a lunatic. Ben couldn’t locate the threat anywhere and all he could think of was keeping Hux safe. It was as though every ounce of fear had suddenly been eradicated from him as soon as he heard Hux scream. Hux was now standing on the bed, flailing in absolute panic.

Ben ran up to him, waving the poker like a seizing samurai. “What is it!” he shouted at Hux, his eyes searching the room, for the threat. “Hux! Tell me where it is!”

“There! Right there!” Hux howled, pointing to, as far as Ben could see, absolutely nothing.

“Where?! I can’t see a thing!”

“Right THERE!” Hux was now almost on the verge of tears, pointing to something just above Ben’s right shoulder.

Ben turned his head and noticed something moving behind him. It was small, very small indeed, and it made a flapping sound as it zigzagged across the room a few feet above the floor. The relief hit Ben at almost the same time the realization did.

It was a bird.

A robin, to be more precise, and it was frantically trying to find its way out of the room. Ben immediately knew how it had ended up in their bedroom. Hux had a habit of leaving the bedroom window ajar during the evenings because, according to him, falling asleep in a cold room was “better for your health”. Ben was pretty sure that the real reason for Hux wanting the room to be as cold as possible was so that he could have an excuse to fall asleep in Ben’s arms, given that Ben was basically a walking furnace. But regardless of Hux’s reasons to leave the window open, this little robin had somehow found its way through this small opening and now it was the sole reason for the utter chaos that was currently unfolding in the bedroom.

Ben couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Hux had now grabbed one of the pillows and he was waiving it around like a lumberjack going berserk with a sack of potatoes. As soon as the bird happened to fly in his general direction, Hux’s screaming and waiving of the pillow intensified. This behavior naturally increased the robin’s stress and sent it flapping around the room even more. Ben understood that he needed to get the bird out of the room as soon as possible and he frantically searched his surroundings for something that could make this task easier. He had abandoned the poker a long time ago. Just when Ben thought that he would have to spend the rest of his life chasing this small bird around a room which held a ceaselessly panicking Hux, he found his new weapon of choice. His gaze fell upon the nicely folded blanket in Hux’s reading chair.

Perfect. 

Ben grabbed the blanket and turned around to see where his target had gone. At first, the only thing that he could focus on was Hux running around in circles on the bed wailing like a humpback whale with stomach ache, still swinging the pillow like a baseball bat.

“SHUT UP!” Ben roared and Hux froze instantly, holding the pillow above his disheveled red hair and staring at Ben with a wild look in his eyes. It made him look a bit like an insane scarecrow in the middle of a very intense pillow fight. “I can’t catch it when you scream like that. You’re stressing it out even more. I just need you to be quiet,” Ben said. “Just for a little while,” he added, as if to reassure Hux that he could scream as much as he liked as soon as the bird had been caught.

_Could this be any more ridiculous?_

During the time it took for Ben to say this, the exhausted robin had finally landed on the floor, its tiny, red chest heaving as it tried to catch its breath. Not surprisingly, Hux saw it first. “There it is! There! On the floor! By the window! Get it before it attacks again!” he sobbed, holding the pillow in front of him like a shield.

“Shush!” Ben whispered, trying to sneak up on the bird, blanket at the ready.

“Don’t you dare shush me!” Hux snapped, dropping the pillow to place his hands on his hips, suddenly miraculously oblivious about the robin on the floor.

The bird flapped its wings nervously at the sound of Hux’s agitated voice. This was all it took to jog Hux’s memory. He hurled the pillow right across the room and let out a shrill scream just as Ben threw the blanket over the robin, trapping it underneath. With a triumphant cackle, Ben swooped down and gently placed his hand over the little bulge in the blanket where the bird was. He felt it move as it made a few attempts to fly away but it soon calmed down as it seemed to realize that it couldn’t get anywhere. Very carefully, Ben reached with his other hand underneath the blanket and closed it delicately around the animal before pulling it out. It was so small and it looked so fragile and Ben felt a warm sensation of tenderness fill his heart. He used his other hand to create a makeshift cage for it between his huge palms. How could something so sweet scare Hux that much?

Ben smiled down at his hands as he turned around. “It’s so tiny. And really cute, too,” he said softly, moving closer to Hux in an attempt to show just how small and harmless the creature in his hands actually was.

It failed miserably.

“GET IT AWAY FROM ME! GET IT THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!” Hux bellowed. He was still standing on the bed, now with his back pressed against the wall and his green eyes wide with terror as they were fixed on Ben’s hands.

“All right! All right! I’m gonna!” Ben exclaimed and walked over to the window and unhooked the hatch with his little finger before pushing the window open entirely. He could feel the bird moving around between his hands, its feathers soft against his skin and its little feet scratching his palm. Leaning out through the window, Ben felt the cold night air and the light drizzle of rain against his face. The unpleasant weather made Ben hesitate. He wondered if it would be cruel to let the little bird fly away in these conditions. But Ben had barely finished that thought before the robin began to flap its wings as soon it realized that it was outside.

“Alright, buddy! I’m reading you loud and clear,” Ben chortled and opened his hands. The robin spread its wings as soon as it was able and took flight. It disappeared into the night and Ben lost sight of it within a few seconds. “Good luck, little guy,” Ben whispered with a smile, before he leaned back and closed the window.

Hux was still on the bed when Ben turned around, though now he was sitting down. Ben couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of Hux, still rather shaken by the experience.

“Do you need a hug?” Ben asked, half tauntingly, half sincerely, as he started walking up to Hux.

“Wash your hands!” Hux blurted out as soon as he noticed Ben moving closer to him.

“My hands are clean, Hux!” Ben laughed with surprise, showing his palms to underline his statement.

“Wash them!” Hux repeated sharply. “Those things have parasites,” he added, shuddering at the mention of the word.

Now it was Ben’s turn to roll his eyes and groan, but he indulged Hux and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. When he returned, Hux had got under the covers and pulled them all the way up to his chin. Ben thought his heart was going to burst with affection, but he still couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease Hux a little.

“Frazzled? _Armitage_ ,” he jeered as he sat down next to Hux on the bed.

“I am never having sex with you again,” Hux snarled, pulling the covers closer around him.

Ben laughed and wrapped his arms around Hux’s waist as he too got under the covers. Hux made a half-hearted attempt to push Ben away, but it didn’t take long before he made himself comfortable in Ben’s arms. Ben could feel Hux’s breath against the side of his neck and how his hands slowly found their way up to his hair. His fingers intertwined with Ben’s black locks and his breathing became heavier and heavier. Ben pulled Hux even closer, stroking his back gently. With a sigh of content, Hux rubbed the tip of his nose against Ben’s shoulder and draped one of his long legs around his waist. The weight of it felt so good.

“Hux?” Ben said quietly, his lips brushing against his forehead.

“What?” Hux mumbled as he was already drifting off to sleep.

“Can we get a bird feeder?”

“Fuck you, Ben,” Hux sighed as he nuzzled Ben’s neck. The last thing he heard before falling asleep was the low rumble of Ben’s laughter and the vibrations it made as it built up in his broad chest.


End file.
